Disclaimer

Any opinions, commentary or annotations on this site represent the
personal opinion of the site's author and not the
IRS. Any hypothetical tax scenarios discussed on this site are illustrative
discussions for the purpose of preliminary volunteer training, and not
tax advice. The tax code is so complex that a completely accurate
answer about your particular situation requires a complete
consultation with a comprehensive intake interview and quality review process. If your tax situation falls within the scope of our
site's IRS VITA certification, you are welcome to make an appointment
for FREE comprehensive tax help at our VITA site after we open in the third week of January, where we will
conduct a full interview and intake and quality review process to take
into account all relevant circumstances of your particular tax
situation..

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Basic Certification Resource Page

Mandatory Homework:

Before the exam on the first day of class, you must complete four practice workbook returns in TaxWise 2016. One of these four returns is the Sheryl Berringer case study (which you have already done in TaxWise 2015 at your early November training session. You should redo the Berringer return in TaxWise 2016) before you do the other three. The four returns (Berringer, Washington, Windsor, and Graham) are the first four returns in the 4491W workbook pdf at this link. Please note that I am happy to answer questions by email. I am also happy to make appointments to meet with you as soon as you return to campus to help you complete these returns.

Note: the IRS pubs you need to get familiar with before the exam are available online here:

How to prepare for the Basic IRS Certification Exam (to be given on the first day of class)

1) The IRS has a great set of on-line tutorials that present the key tax information you need to prepare basic-level tax returns. That tutorial is full of problems similar to those you will encounter the exam (and similar to those you will encounter with live taxpayers.) Work through it! Take notes--remember that you can use your notes and any reference materials during the exam.

I have listed the tutorials with links at right, and I have put stars to show the most important topics. --------------------------------------------------------------------->>>

2) The exam is open book and open note. It is a good idea to mark up your Pub 4012 book with annotations to clarify the most important and trickiest parts, which you will frequently need to refer to on the exam (as well as with real taxpayers.)

I have posted PDFs of my own annotated pages from the most important pages of the 4012, and I suggest you copy my annotations into your copy. Those key sections are listed below. Please email me with questions or requests for clarification if anything is unclear.

7) Third most useful resource is Pub 4012 Page D-1 on the types of income that are subject to income tax and the types of income that are NOT subject to income tax. Make sure you read my annotated copy of Pub 4012 Tab D and copy my page D-1 annotations into your copy

8) After you have worked through the tutorial. do the 4 homework Basic practice tax returns in your 4491W workbook using the 2015 TaxWise software when it becomes available in December.

(The official IRS answer key from 2014 is in black. Unofficial 2015 answers are in red.)

Basic Link & Learn Tutorial Topics

There are some very useful lessons in the 4491 PDF book. (Key chapters for basic are listed below:

Ch 5: Filing Status ***

Ch 6: Personal Exemptions ***

Ch 7: Dependency Exemptions ***

Ch 8:Unique Filing Status and Exemption Situation ***

Ch.9: Income, Wages,Interest,etc. ***

Ch 12: Income: retirement income *

Ch 20 Standard deductions **

Ch 21: Itemized deductions *

Ch 23: Credit for child and dependent care expenses *

Ch 24: Earned Income Credit **

Appendix A-1 Affordable Care Exercises *

Remember, do NOT try to memorize all this! Just read through, try the exercises in the book, make a note of the most helpful pages in the Pub 4012 for future reference, write down your questions and send them to me or post them on the discussion forum I will set up in Nexus. I will also be available and available for help pretty much every waking hour from Monday morning Jan 2 through the beginning of the exam on Tuesday Jan 5.